spoilers for trailblazer-related plot points during the jarilo-vi final boss fight, though not for the boss themself
ok so theory time
we met qlipoth the preservation in the simulated universe first (in world 1) & then later unlocked the path of preservation
(we also got the fire element in jarilo-vi, an ice world, which is a related-but-separate thing. this is kinda a stretch but i think it’d be interesting to get an element that counters wind like fire does ice. definitely not for angst reasons, i promise. and i think it’s cute that we got to match paths with march 7th and potentially dan heng first)
since we met lan the hunt next (in world 2), if the trend continues we’ll get hunt mc next
…i don’t actually know which aeon we meet in world 3, if any — i haven’t gotten that far and wasn’t able to find much online 😓 input is welcome [edit] in world 3 we meet nanook the destruction and immediately get murked (thank you @yeeted-into-the-multiverse!) why am i not surprised… at least we got an interaction with them, i guess, even if that interaction was murder
but from what my friends have told me and what i’ve dug up online, it seems like we meet ix the nihility in world 4 and yaoshi the abundance in world 5. correct me if i’m wrong bc, again, i haven’t gotten that far myself
(and of course we may meet other aeons like fuli the remembrance and aha the elation in world 1, it’s just that they don’t have playable paths.)
so i’m gonna guess that, for path progression, it’ll go like:
destruction [canon]
preservation [canon]
hunt
???
nihility
abundance
???
not sure whether we’d get erudition (nous) or harmony (xipe) first but i kinda wanna go with harmony…? which would leave my beloved aoe trailblazer ‘til last rip
^and this is mostly because we got asta as a kind of “tutorial” character — and i know we were given herta too! asta just came first.
(but also i think it’d be funny to see trailblazer bounce from harmony to nihility. imagine the whiplash for their teammates.)
just for kicks, elements to go along with them:
physical [canon]
fire [canon]
ice
wind
lightning
imaginary
quantum
reasoning:
canon.
canon.
wind is fast & i think ice is a good counter to that. slow enemies down, freeze them. can’t attack if you’re frozen.
this was actually the last one i put down via process of elimination kek. but, coincidentally, it ties back into matching with march (ice) and dan heng (wind) again so i’m happy with it.
honestly i think it’d be really neat if the trailblazer ended up with a similar skillset to kafka — lightning + nihility.
imaginary and quantum both feel like endgame elements to me since they kinda stick out against the more “mundane” elements.
a lot of early-game enemies in the space station are weak to quantum. said enemies are the antimatter legion, followers of nanook, the big bad. so it wouldn’t surprise me if they became late-game enemies as well, or if nanook shared that weakness.
i think that’s everything i’ve got. i’ll reblog this with updates as i’m proven wrong or right.
i’m probably not the first person to bring this whole thing up but i don’t care because i had fun thinking about it /lh